In a tire forming procedure, a post-vulcanized tire immediately after vulcanized by a tire-vulcanizing device is hot and soft and thus is deformed by its own weight.
Thereupon, using the PCI device, the vulcanized tire is held in a state closer to a wheel mount state by a body-side rim mold and an attaching/detaching-side rim mold, and compressed air is supplied into the tire to hold a shape of the tire, and the tire is cooled in this state to stabilize its shape.
When the post-vulcanized tire is loaded to the PCI device, a loading device that reciprocates between the PCI device and the tire-vulcanizing device is used. When a cooled tire is unloaded from the PCI device, an unloading device that reciprocates between the PCI device and a tire discharging position is used.
In the PCI device, a tire is held in a state closer to the wheel mount state by the body-side mold and the attaching/detaching-side rim mold. When the tire is loaded and unloaded, it is necessary that the attaching/detaching-side rim mold is separated from the body-side rim mold, thereby separating both the rim molds, the loading device is transferred between both the molds, the post-vulcanized tire is placed on the body-side rim mold, or the unloading device is transferred between the molds, and the cooled tire is unloaded from the body-side rim mold.
In the case of the conventional technique, however, when the loading device or the unloading device is transferred between the body-side rim mold and the attaching/detaching-side rim mold, it is necessary to largely stroke (hoist) the attaching/detaching-side rim mold so that the loading device or the unloading device does not interfere the attaching/detaching-side rim mold, and the PCI device is increased in size correspondingly, and the producing cost is also increased.
A separating action of the attaching/detaching-side rim mold is carried out only for separating both the rim molds for the sake of preventing the interfere when the loading device or the unloading device is transferred between both the rim molds. Therefore, there is a problem that since the separating procedure of the attaching/detaching-side rim mold is added, the loading procedure of the postcured tire and the unloading procedure of the cooled tire are increased and complicated correspondingly, and the operation efficiency can not be enhanced.
The present invention has been accomplished to solve the above-described conventional problem, and the invention makes it possible to load a tire by the loading device and to unload a tire by the unloading device in a state in which the tire is grasped by the attaching/detaching-side rim mold by assembling a tire catching device to the attaching/detaching-side rim mold.
With this, when the loading device or the unloading device is transferred, a procedure for separating the attaching/detaching-side rim mold to separate both the rim molds is eliminated, and the loading procedure and unloading procedure are simplified correspondingly, and the operation efficiency is enhanced.
It is an object of the invention to provide a tire catching device of a PCI device in which a stroke amount when separating or coupling the attaching/detaching-side rim mold from and to the body-side rim mold is reduced to such a degree that the caught tire does not interfere with the body-side rim mold so that the device is reduced in size.